Does terrorism have a unique and significant emotional and behavioral impact among adults and children? In what way does the impact of terrorism exceed the individual level and affect communities and specific professional groups, and test different leadership styles? How were professional communities of mental health clinicians, policy-makers and researchers mobilized to respond to the emerging needs post disaster? What are the lessons learned from the work conducted after 9/11, and the implications for future disaster mental health work and preparedness efforts? Yuval Neria and his team are uniquely placed to answer these questions having been involved in modifying ongoing trials and setting up new ones in New York to address these issues straight after the attacks. No psychiatrist, mental health professional or policy-maker should be without this book.

The Oklahoma City bombing, intentional crashing of airliners on September 11, 2001, and anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 have made Americans acutely aware of the impacts of terrorism. These events and continued threats of terrorism have raised questions about the impact on the psychological health of the nation and how well the public health infrastructure is able to meet the psychological needs that will likely result. Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism highlights some of the critical issues in responding to the psychological needs that result from terrorism and provides possible options for intervention. The committee offers an example for a public health strategy that may serve as a base from which plans to prevent and respond to the psychological consequences of a variety of terrorism events can be formulated. The report includes recommendations for the training and education of service providers, ensuring appropriate guidelines for the protection of service providers, and developing public health surveillance for preevent, event, and postevent factors related to psychological consequences.

A heartfelt collection of extraordinary first-person accounts that delve into every level of the experience of 9/11 Out of the infamy of 9/11 and its aftermath people rose up with courage and determination to meet formidable challenges. On the Ground After September 11: Mental Health Responses and Practical Lessons Gained is a stirring compilation of over a hundred personal and professional first-hand accounts of the entire experience, from the moment the first plane slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, to the months mental health professionals worked to ease the pain and trauma of others even while they themselves were traumatized. This remarkable chronicle reveals the breadth and depth of human need and courage along with the practical organizational considerations encountered in the responses to terrorist attacks. The goal of any terrorist act is to instill psychosocial damage to a society to effect change. On the Ground After September 11 provides deep insight into the damage the attack had on our own society, the failures and victories within our response systems, and the path of healing that mental health workers need to travel to be of service to their clients. Personal accounts written by the professionals and public figures involved reveal the broad range of responses to this traumatic event and illuminate how mental health services can most effectively be delivered. Through the benefit of hindsight, recommendations are described for ways to better finance assistance, adapt the training of mental health professionals, and modify organizations’ response to the needs of victims in this type of event. Reading these unique personal accounts of that day and the difficult days that followed provides a thoughtful, moving, rational view of what is truly needed in times of disaster. On the Ground After September 11 includes the first-person experiences and lessons learned from the people of: NYU Downtown Hospital NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NY Metropolitan Transportation Council St. Paul’s Chapel St. Vincent Hospital - Manhattan Safe Horizon LifeNet WTC Incident Command Center at NYC Medical Examiner’s office New Jersey’s Project Phoenix Massachusetts Department of Mental Health the military psychiatric response to the Pentagon attack Connecticut’s Center for Trauma Response, Recovery, and Preparedness the Staten Island Relief Center Barrier Free Living Inc. for people with disabilities the Federal Emergency Management Agency Alianza Dominicana, Inc. Staten Island Mental Health Society the United Airlines Emergency Response Team for Flight 93 The Center for Trauma Response, Recovery, and Preparedness (CTRP) Disaster Mental Health Services (DMHS) at Dulles International Airport the American Red Cross the Respite Center at the Great White Tent HealthCare Chaplaincy The Salvation Army the Islamic Circle of North America The Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies, Inc. F*E*G*S the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services (JBFCS) and many, many more On the Ground After September 11: Mental Health Responses and Practical Lessons Gained poignantly illustrates that regardless of profession, culture, religion, or age, every life touched by 9/11 will never be the same. This is essential reading for counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists, trauma specialists, educators, and students.

The Oklahoma City bombing, intentional crashing of airliners on September 11, 2001, and anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 have made Americans acutely aware of the impacts of terrorism. These events and continued threats of terrorism have raised questions about the impact on the psychological health of the nation and how well the public health infrastructure is able to meet the psychological needs that will likely result. Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism highlights some of the critical issues in responding to the psychological needs that result from terrorism and provides possible options for intervention. The committee offers an example for a public health strategy that may serve as a base from which plans to prevent and respond to the psychological consequences of a variety of terrorism events can be formulated. The report includes recommendations for the training and education of service providers, ensuring appropriate guidelines for the protection of service providers, and developing public health surveillance for preevent, event, and postevent factors related to psychological consequences.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, also referred as 9/11, was an iconic event in US history that altered the global and political response to terrorism. The attacks, which involved two planes hitting the twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, resulted in the collapse of the buildings and over 2800 deaths of occupants of the buildings, fire, police and other responders and persons on the street in the vicinity of the collapsing buildings. The destroyed towers and the surrounding buildings have since been replaced but the health effects that resulted from the release of tons of dust, gases and debris as well as the life threat trauma are ongoing, and represent a major health burden among persons directly exposed. Hundreds of scientific publications have documented the physical and mental health effects attributed to the disaster. The current state-of-the-art in understanding the ongoing interactions of physical and mental health, especially PTSD, and the unique mechanisms by which pollutants from the building collapse, have resulted in long term pulmonary dysfunction, course of previously reported conditions, potential emerging conditions (e.g., heart disease and autoimmune diseases), as well as quality of life, functioning and unmet health care needs would be in the purview of this Special Issue on the 9/11 Disaster.

This text explores the emotions of despair, fear and anger that arose after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the Autumn of 2001. The authors analyse reactions to the attacks through the lens of terror management theory, an existenial psychological model that explains why humans react the way they do to the threat of death and how this reaction influences their post-threat cognition and emotion. The theory provides ways to understand and reduce terrorism's effect and possibly find resolutions to conflicts involving terrorism. The authors focus primarily on the reaction in the US to the 9/11 attack, but their model is applicable to all instances of terrorism, and they expand their discussion to include the Israeli-Palastinian conflict.

Publisher description

A rich collection of studies by mental health professionals that provide a deep understanding of the nature of psychological trauma induced by modern terrorism